Neurorehabilitation is an emerging field in medical science wherein patients suffering from damage to, or impairment of, all or a portion of their central nervous system (CNS) are treated to rehabilitate neural pathways, and/or establish new neural pathways, to at least partially compensate for the damage/impairment. Neurorehabilitation is therefore somewhat different from neural substitution, where devices are used to try to provide new neural inputs which serve as a proxies for impaired neural inputs—for example, devices which collect images of a patient's surroundings and then provide tactile feedback to the patient in dependence on the collected images, such that the patient is given tactile input as a substitute for visual input. Examples of neural substitution devices are described in prior patent applications which name the inventors of the present invention, e.g., US Published Patent Applns. 20050240253, US20060161218, 20060241718, 20070250119, 20080009772, and 20080228239 (all of which are incorporated by reference herein).
At the time this document was prepared, neurorehabilitation was commonly effected by non-invasive methods such as physical therapy, occupational therapy, or speech therapy, which basically involves the use of exercise to attempt to increase a patient's abilities. For example, one suffering from a spinal cord injury might exercise an affected area of the body to increase coordination and range of motion. These methods suffer from the disadvantage of being time-consuming, difficult and exhausting for the patient. Invasive methods also exist, such as electrostimulation, wherein electrodes are implanted to deliver electricity at or near neural pathways to enhance neural function, and/or to counter “erroneous” neural function. For example, deep brain stimulation (DBS) may be used for treatment of Parkinson's Disease and depression, left vagal nerve stimulation (LVNS) may be used for treatment of epilepsy, or sub-dural implantable stimulators may be used to assist with stroke recovery. These invasive methods are risky, still largely experimental, and expensive, and thus are generally used as a last resort when all other therapeutic interventions have failed. Additionally, they have not yet proven to be generally usable with other severe CNS disorders such as traumatic brain injury, stroke, or a sensory-motor polytrauma experienced by wounded military personnel, for example.
It would therefore be useful to have additional methods and devices available for neurorehabilitation which are noninvasive or minimally invasive, inexpensive, and which eliminate or reduce the need for the ordeal of physical therapy and similar noninvasive methods.